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One
|history= My name is Ignatius Stanislaus Rasmussen. I'm mortally injured. I have forty minutes at best before I bleed out and help is at least an hour away by helicopter. This is where my story ends. High in the Swiss Alps, surrounded by the bodies of my employees, my life's work in ruins. There's an electrical fire in one of the workshops and the suppression system is offline. So I fiddle while Rome burns. Let's talk about how I got here. The short version of the story is that I've been working very hard for a very long time to keep something like this from happening. I've survived for more than a century and lived through two world wars. I've dedicated my entire life to the pursuit of immortality. Now I'm going to die. Cause of death? Hubris. The beginning. It seems like so very long ago. I'd been coming up with ways to extend my lifespan for decades, but I was starting to run out of options. I needed to do something radical and extreme, so I came up with the Reboot Project. The initial goal was simple, at least to state. Clone my body as it was in my youth. Remove the brain and replace it with a sophisticated hard drive. Then copy my own consciousness and upload it into a new body. If I kept enough bodies on hand and ensured there was always a backup of my consciousness on file, I could be theoretically immortal. I'd already spent more than seventy years studying bioengineering and chemistry. Cloning myself, even removing the brains from the clones, that was easy. Constructing the hard drives, though? Programming them with just enough data to be functional but not enough to be sentient? Copy/pasting my own brain? That was difficult. It took two decades to fully develop a single prototype, though I had various backups in many different states of completion. The first one... He was like a son to me. Rasmussen Technologies Biological Research Unit Zero-One. One for short. I grew attached. I knew that this body was the one I wanted to inhabit. I didn't make the transition immediately. If I was going to have a new body, I wanted it to be strong. Potent. Dangerous. Using gene therapy, I perfected One. I made him stronger. Faster. Long-lived and quick to heal. It was during this time that I installed his data storage unit and activated him for the first time. It was a powerful experience, creating life without giving birth. He was little more than an automaton at first, equipped with programming to allow for basic communication and self-preservation. I eventually ran out of ways to augment him. My life's work was complete. The time had come to make the transfer. I strapped One in and hooked him up to the appropriate equipment. I kissed him on the forehead and said, "There may be some momentary discomfort." Then I threw the switch. I hadn't anticipated how painful the process would be for him. I believe that's why he broke free. Because I activated his self-preservation protocols. All I know is, a few seconds after I started uploading my consciousness to his hard drive, the entire world exploded. He broke free from his harness. He strangled me. Slowly. He broke my arms and legs. And then, very deliberately, he stuck a scalpel into my liver. The worst part is, I knew exactly what he was doing. Crippling me without immediately killing me. Leaving me to watch and bleed while he wrecked my lab, stole my personal effects, and murdered my staff. I knew this because it's exactly what I would've done. . . . I don't understand what's happening. There's blood on my hands. On the floor. Everywhere. There's fire. Everything is broken. And I can see myself on the floor. My limbs are all pointing at the wrong angles. I'm not dead, but I'm definitely dying. Yet I'm standing here, looking down at myself. Oh. He finally did it. I finally did it? No time to think. Figure it out later. Instinctively, I grab what I know I will need. My personal effects. My trench gun, saber, and service revolver from my--from the doctor's time in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment. Mementos taken from soldiers he'd killed. A set of scalpels, because they feel good in my hand. Some medical supplies. A laptop computer that's mounted into a nearly indestructible briefcase. A bit of cash, but not much. And then, without a second thought, I leave. I walk by a lot of bodies on my way out. A lot of damaged equipment. Bank upon bank of computers that are scorched or burning. And somehow, I know that I did this. But I also know that whatever I am, whoever I am, I'm free. I am Rasmussen Technologies Biological Research Unit Zero-One. You can call me One for short. I'm a clone. I was created by a crazy narcissist who wanted to live forever, and I'm pretty sure I just killed him. I prefer not to think about what happened after that. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to expect. I had Doctor Rasmussen's memories, but I didn't fully understand them. I didn't understand myself. I stayed apart from humanity for many months. Separate. I watched them, I listened, and I learned what people would expect from me if I ever wanted to be one of them. It was a very lonely, very hungry time for me. I learned that in some places, people don't care who you are. Especially if you claim to be a doctor. I used Rasmussen's skills to survive, I cobbled together equipment, and I studied myself while I studied humanity. After providing medical care for a mercenary in Somalia, I was brought onto his team as a field medic. After our first firefight, when I let Ignatius take over and tear flesh right off of our enemies, I was politely let go. That cycle continued for several years. I'd hire on with a team, usually as a doctor or researcher, only to be left behind once people learned how dangerous I was. Eventually, a South African warlord decided he liked what he saw and brought me in as his enforcer. That's where I really got to hone my combat skills. It wasn't enough for me. It didn't provide me the opportunities I needed to better understand who and what I was, or to try and be a real person. All it did was encourage Ignatius to rear his ugly head. I took off. Now I'm on my way to America. They say it's the land of opportunity. Where dreams come true. I guess we'll see. }} Category:OC Category:Neutral Category:Unregistered Category:Character